1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a support apparatus for butchering, and particularly sawing the bones of an animal quarter, especially of cattle, the quarter being suspended at its leg end.
2. Background Art
Animal carcases which are to be butchered are conventionally divided into quarters, division taking place such that the carcass is cloven along its plane of symmetry, the halves then being parted at approximately half their length. The resulting quarters are hung on hooks, such as those that move on overhead rails suspended in the ceiling for conveyance to wholesale butchering stations.
Particular attention must be paid during butchering to making the meat yield as large as possible, and it is furthermore a pressing desire that the dressing operations be carried out in the shortest possible time for the least possible input of labour.
The invention is based on knowledge of these problems. The meat yield from a hindquarter can be improved if the fillet bones, i.e., the protuberances from the spine between the loins or steak meat and the fillet, are sawn off close to the spine after the fillet has been removed. The loin can then be removed together with the sawn-off fillet bones, and the latter can be easily removed in a subsequent operation. In conventional butchering without sawing off the fillet bones, the butcher's knife will damage the loins and there is no possibility of avoiding cutting away the loin parts lying between adjacent fillet bones.
It has been analogously established that on a forequarter the yield of chuck and entrecote is improved by sawing off the rugged protuberances on the upper side of the spine before the chuck or the entrecote are cut loose, the rugged protuberances being removed from the butchered portion afterwards.
The condition for a total gain in efficiency for the processing mentioned is, however, that means be provided to enable rapid and simple accessibility to the parts in question of the quarter so as to allow cutting off the bone portions in conditions meeting safety requirements. One object of the invention is therefore to provide such means.